This invention relates to a home or business security device. In particular, this invention relates to the prevention of unwanted intruders from gaining ingress into a building through a window, typically a basement window, by covering the window opening with a simple system of metal bars.
In recent years home security has become an increasingly serious issue. With the incidents of burglary on the rise, there is an increased need for homes and businesses to employ preventative devices to eliminate forced entry through building windows.
One major problem is that most known such devices for preventing forced entry are often complicated, expensive, difficult to install, and difficult to operate. The average homeowner or business owner has little or no knowledge about such devices, and limited or no equipment with which to install such a device.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,653,226, 5,392,570, 5,334,971, and 4,817,334 (Badger) each describes a security device in the form of a window bar system. These window bar systems contain features such as removability from the inside, a lock and key mechanism, and, as with Badger, the ability to fit to a range of window sizes. However, in spite of their features, these window bar systems contains many drawbacks. They are expensive to manufacture, contain numerous parts, and are difficult for the average homeowner to install. Although U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,084 (Zen) describes a window bar system without these drawbacks, Zen's window bar system secures the vertical bars at the sashes while the present invention secures the vertical bars in the window opening where they intersect the horizontal crossbars.
It is an object of this invention, therefore, to provide for a window opening a security device or kit of the type described which is inexpensive and contains few parts.
Another object of this invention is that such device be simple to install and require no special tools, so that the instructions for installing this device may be very brief and simple, thus enabling the average homeowner to install the device.
Other objects of this invention will be apparent hereinafter from the specification and from the recitation of the appended claims, particularly when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.